I’m Fine, Thanks

Hey, bitches. I’m alive. And I’m perma-working from home, so get ready for some long-ass, rambling posts about nothing.

I’m not going to say much about leaving my job because it’d just be retraumatizing for me, but I’ll say this: I received actual reparations money. Mostly from guilty junior staff, who knew I suffered needlessly under the yoke of my faux-feminist oppressor’s despotic rule, but still. By the way, her bitch-ass did not contribute to my reparations, nor did her bitch-ass boss. She didn’t even show up to work on my last day. Instead, she emailed me saying her gift was coming in the mail. It never came. And thank God – I was genuinely afraid that I’d come home one day to a horse’s severed head on my doorstep.

I’m still in touch with the homies that matter, though. I actually had a romantic Valentine’s dinner with one, and with another, I went to Karamo Brown’s book launch at Barnes & Noble in Union Square, and we pre-gamed how to exploit her pregnancy as much as possible to get more QT (that’s quality time—Quality T!) with the K-Man. The Eventbrite info said that they would have a professional photographer covering the event, so I put on makeup and a bra for the first time in days. I expected high-res but soft focus. I expected luxury. I expected class. I expected professionalism. But asshole didn’t show up or they were too cheap to cover their fee, so B&N had one of the staff take photos on our cameras. Dude took a burst of, like, a billion, and all bar one were terrible. As a matter of fact, they were so bad that I discovered something new about myself: my head is the shape of a thumb. That’s right. It goes from my dome-snack, to my face with no angular features, to my stubby neck, to my torso, in one fell swoop. No chin—oh, no—just a bunch of frightened fat cells trapped between where my chin should be and where my neck slips seamlessly into my shapeless cheeks. And thanks to inadequate B&N staff, I got to look at that shit in HD. The horror was breathtaking. Dude is on my shitlist for eternity. I have the same side profile as a thumb, motherfuckers: as in, there isn’t much characteristic difference as you rotate from the side and the front. So, my options at this point are to either learn to contour like a Kardashian and hope that whatever “shadow” I create to resemble an angular chin doesn’t end up looking like a beard—because that’s definitely what my self-confidence needs right now—or kill myself.

I’m doing aight from the front, though. Since 2019 began, two people have complimented me on my skin. One was from my honorary hype woman, and it meant next to nothing to me because she loves me and knows how tissue-thin my self-esteem is, and she herself is so beautiful—and her skin sopore-fect—that getting a compliment from your objectively-way-hotter-than-you friend is more of a burn than anything. The other came from my trifling former work husband who literally made me lift up my bangs to examine my forehead for wrinkles. That was one of the most vulnerable moments of my life.

Freelancing is going well. I wake up whenever I want, I wear sweatpants as a uniform, and if I want to go to a museum in the middle of the day, I do. I’m desperately trying to be more creative, so if I’m not working on my unwieldy freelance projects—which range from writing newspaper flyers to sell hot dogs to writing brochures for pulmonary catheters to editing reported stories on violence against women—I’m reading books and catching art exhibits and drinking profusely (what else is new?).

With all this free time on my hands, I also get to ask myself questions I want no business in finding out, like, “Am I a good person?” Then I freefall into the rabbit hole of what makes a good person before I escape to Twitter and find no fewer than 60 examples of people who aren’t good people, in under 60 seconds. So, I’m fine.

This next update might dispute what I’ve just said, but I’ve been dreaming up a script for a limited television series about my mother that exposes her for the monster she is, lovable to all but those who have to put up with her bullshit. No further questions from here, thank you.

I’m just trying to live my truth, you know, snuggly in this fleece pajama set my sister bought for me for Christmas on sale at Marshalls. It’s forest green and has a Rudolph print and is veritable dick-repellant. THAT’S OKAY THOUGH because I’m a dog mom and therefore am fulfilled.

I get to stare at him all day now, which, honestly, makes me feel so badly. I don’t deserve him, I really don’t. He looks at me like I’m a better person than I am, and when he’s not looking at me, he’s curled up in this adorable, sad-ass ball of fluffy fluff, trying to be as unimposing and out-of-the-way and apologetic as possible. I want better for him. I want better for our life together.

I am kinda shitting myself about the move, though. It’s both terrifying and a little sobering having to sell all your shit in the span of four weeks – you’re basically forced to calculate your life’s worth, and who wants to confront that? What is the price of the life you’ve acquired with grit, tenacity, and a heaving heap of shamelessness? Who cares, because you’re about to put it all on clearance.

Otherwise, I’ve just kinda been frying my corneas on my iPhone’s blue light and pretending I’m not gonna go blind in 5 years. Since going freelance, I’ve increased my daily phone activity from 2 hours to 5 hours. Holy fuck. But it’s fine. I’d prefer not to see the giant tsunami coming to eat me when the end of times comes. Some of you (I’m not gonna say who) have voiced concern over me freaking the fuck out about climate change, but, you know, the Doomsday clock says that I will totally still be on this fucking earth when hell opens its foul mouth and swallows us earthly assholes whole, and it will be well before I’m anywhere near having my shit together. So, I am justified.

Back to the mundane. I’ve become acutely aware of how annoying my back fat is to me now. I don’t know if that’s necessarily suppressed observation, but now, I have all the time in the world to ruminate on it. The undulating waves of my body disturb me greatly. Just not enough to do anything about it, and that fact brings me great shame.

Like today, when I worked for a couple hours, got frustrated, told myself I was taking a “me break” and ended up watching Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle for the fifty-leventh time in the last month while pretending to do yoga on the floor. I could’ve gone out. I could’ve gone to a book event, gotten groceries, went to an actual (free!) yoga class. I could’ve done something for my mind/body/spirit tonight, but I was so paralyzed by indecision that I ended up just staying on the floor, looking at my phone, waiting for my life to end. Then, I got up, made a terrible smoothie, and put on a face mask.

I just sprayed some expensive-ass face mist into my eyeball on accident and it stings like The Devil so I guess this would be how I die.